New from 404 Media: Flock is using overseas gig workers to build its surveillance AI. Flock has cameras in thousands of communities around the US which can detect vehicles and people. We found gig workers in the Philippines are reviewing footage to classify people

404 Media

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI

Flock accidentally exposed training materials and a panel which tracked what its AI annotators were working on. It showed that Flock, which has cam...

I spoke to Michael Bobbitt, a former FBI official about how the FBI secretly ran an encrypted phone for criminals, backdoored it, and collected tens of millions of messages. Bobbitt was helping funnel intelligence from US to European authorities Watch here:

The 404 Media Podcast is up! This week - a massive breach reveals people using an AI chatbot to make porn from women's yearbook photos - how America became the world's side hustle with social media spamming - how we helped shut down a warrantless surveillance program

Here is the video for our latest FOIA Forum, where we told you how to get information about Flock from your local agencies/government. Includes network audits, which are the files that show why exactly cops are using the cameras (helping ICE, for example):

404 Media

Here's the Video for Our Seventh FOIA Forum: Flock

Here is the archived video of our FOIA Forum about how to do reporting on Flock.

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New from 404 Media: X has shown where accounts are actually being run from, revealing many MAGA accounts are actually grifters in Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. But the situation is much, much worse. Entire guides specifically on how to squeeze US audiences with AI.

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America’s Polarization Has Become the World's Side Hustle

The 'psyops' revealed by X are entirely the fault of the perverse incentives created by social media monetization programs.

Players are roleplaying in Fortnite to teach each other their rights when encountering ICE officials “I would slip [the warrant] under the door, but there’s no space under the door,” the agent says. The civilian pauses. “Well. Sounds like a personal problem.”

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Inside an ICE Defense Training on Fortnite

A group of immigrant rights organizers are helping people use Fortnite to practice what to do if they encounter ICE agents in the wild.

Here's the full conversation between @npub1nn0l...qf5k and Chris Gilliard about how companies convinced consumers to spy on themselves, from Flock to Ring to more: Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify for more conversations like this every week

I wrote some of the behind the scenes of what led up to the U.S's major airlines stopping a program in which they sold Americans flight data to the government to be searched without a warrant. Came after our months-long reporting and lawmaker pressure

404 Media

Behind the Blog: A Risograph Journey and Data Musings

This week, we discuss how data is accessed, AI in games, and more.

New: cops used Flock AI-enabled cameras to monitor No Kings protests around the country. Also monitored No Hands protests and protests against DOGE. "Should serve as a warning of how it may be used in the future to suppress dissent."

404 Media

Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country

A massive cache of Flock lookups collated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shows as many as 50 federal, state, and local agencies used F...